series' threatening to retaliate for an israeli air strike inside its territory while its ally iran says they'll be repercussions over that time. as the french dub the military operation in mali as a success to bring you some chilling stories from the three week long battle against islam it's. also on the program a former cia officer who blew the whistle on america's torture program and is now waiting to turn to help years in prison talks to us here about what he believes is behind his sentence. this is all see coming to live from moscow hello and a very warm welcome to the program syria and iran are threatening to retaliate

against israel for a rare and a strike on syria into a tree syria claims israeli warplanes hit a military research center near damascus killing two while the u.s. says the jets dogs had a military convoy heading for neighboring lebanon point to ca's monitoring developments from tel aviv for. the syrian ambassador to lebanon did say that it was not clear when ever tell you would happen and that it was up to the powers that be to decide on such decisive action but he did say that it was an option and that it was and would be a surprise now the iranian foreign minister has also stated that this is radio attack has serious implications for the israeli city of tel aviv and those are indeed quite harsh warnings what we understand from syria from syria and sources is that the is waves hit a research center not far from the capital city of damascus and that at least on

finding workers were killed there are also reports that these trying to get a convoy of weapons that was making its way from syria to lebanon and now washington reportedly was warned by israel of that intention to strike inside syria this kind of comment coming from a high ranking american official who spoke on condition that he not be named it is important to mention that a couple of months ago iran's revolutionary guard did say that assad had friends in the region who had not yet entered the fray the quote was that these planes were poised to strike out in case there was an intervention in syria but we have know come into it from television also has been no comment from washington from moscow hosted if indeed these raids did strike inside syrian territory it is a gross violation of the united nations charter. during an economic and political analyst mohammed miranda says israel should take iran's warning of repercussions

seriously. but it's important is that the united states knew about their strike before hand they did nothing about it the european union as usual so is silent about it there is no condemnation for killing syrians two for bombing the country for of course iran world the syrian sovereignty the iranians have many means to hurt the israelis and to punish the israelis it doesn't necessarily mean that they have to be involved directly they could. support countries or bodies that could make life for israelis more difficult france is hailing its military mission against islamist rebels in mali a success with this three week long intervention has also created more havoc in the conflict torn country and some chilling stories are emerging as a local reporter gonzalo told r.t. . so there are four of us as betty ellis the war became

a real nightmare for the people of this small city in the sago region it was one of the first places bombed by french warplanes before more jihadists arrived sweeping south towards the capital by marco the french intervention left a pile of debris and ashes that's just the visible traces of the war they left it's a billions who are left with the scars that will last a lifetime one family paid a deep price for this conflict against the islamist terrorists one of the family sons was killed by a jihadist soldier inside his own home. one brother was attacked by a group of militants the ridge children among them he started running and got back into our house but they followed him one of the children fired at him but missed and then another insurgent shot him inside the house my brother fell and was riddled with bullets we laid his body in the house we couldn't bury him because we were afraid to go outside. this is just one example of the terror that the conflict

is putting mali and civilians through plaguing the weakest the most no one was surprised when india bali once jihadist troops arrived it was discovered that the majority of the military were heavily armed child soldiers. so the french banks mylan government forces are increasingly accused of atrocities during the conflict with the rebels and on l.t. dot com you will find some exclusive images allegedly showing evidence of war crimes by the troops and there were also have more stories from people on the ground about how they're living through the western led battle against islam that's so i'll say dot com is the place to get. a former cia officer turned whistle blower sentenced to two and a half years behind bars waiting to start his jail time john kiriakou was the first official to publicly confirm the agency's use of waterboarding and condemned as torture so he was convicted for revealing a covert officers identity journalist although told r.t.

his client was simply speaking out against the government. first of all my case was not about leaking my case was about torture when i blew the whistle on torture in december of two thousand and seven the justice to department here in the united states began investigating me and never stopped investigating me until they were able to patch together. charge and force me into taking a plea agreement and i'll add another thing to when i took the plea in october of last year the judge said that she thought the plea was was fair and appropriate but once the courtroom was packed full of reporters last friday she decided that it was not long enough and if she had had the ability to she would have given me ten years in this post nine eleven atmosphere that we find ourselves in we have been losing our civil liberties incrementally over the last decade to the point where we don't even realize how much of

a police state the united states has become you know ten years ago the thought of the national security agency spying on american citizens and intercepting their emails would have been anathema to americans and now it's just part of normal business. the idea that that our government would be using drone aircraft to assassinate american citizens who have never seen the inside of a courtroom who have never been charged with a crime and have not had due process which is their constitutional right would have been unthinkable and it's something now that happens every every so often every few weeks every few months and there is no public outrage i think this is a very dangerous development and john kiriakou was also a guest on other nonces breaking the set his own r.c. so don't means the extensive into he has of the case and its implications later today. do you think that the the real people who oversaw codified torture john

yoo alberto gonzales and donald rumsfeld shouldn't they be the ones sitting in prison they should be the ones and there are others even if you just put aside the people who actually did the day to day torture what about the people who conceived of the policy and who implemented the policy where the attorneys that papered over it with with crazed legal analysis or the man who who destroyed evidence of the torture in the tapes. u.s. president barack obama's pick for the country's next defense secretary has gone out of his way to persuade the senate has the right man for the job. for his previous statements at the confirmation hearing chuck hagel made it clear he will act in accordance with white house policies if his candidacy is approved and also he's going to listen to the session which brought some heated discussion but little hope

of change. chuck hagel bent backwards to show how mainstream his views are the senators kept accusing him of not being mainstream enough and they kept using the word mainstream over and over again during this hearing chuck hagel has walked back on a number of positions he had taken earlier he kept apologizing again and again and chuck hagel went to great lengths to show that he is in no way going to challenge washington's core foreign policy beliefs as one of the senators put it it was quite an exhausting hearing considering the senators were asking almost the same questions and roughly eighty percent of them had to do with chuck hagel previous statements on israel and iran there was so much mentioning of israel that at some point they were confirming him as secretary of defense for israel i couldn't count how many times he said all options are on the table with regards to iran again and again saying a strike on iran is an option an option that he had previously called irresponsible by the way here's what chuck hagel kept repeating throughout the hearing get the

united nations behind you get the international sanctions behind you keep military options on the table if the military option is the only option it's the only option one of the senators pointed out during the hearing that in a private conversation senator hagel recently told him that he thought sanctions didn't work and previously chuck hagel voted against sanctions but today's chuck hagel as we found out during this hearing is for sanctions to those who believe mr haye go was in favor of direct negotiations with iran as he had previously claimed he was he offered a correction a very vague one he tried to blur his response as much as he could here's what he said i don't have a problem with engaging i think great powers engaging in gauge mint is clearly in our interest that's not negotiation engagement is not appeasement engagement is not sure under so no direct negotiations with iran here's another example of how chuck

hagel had to walk back on some of his prayed. statements at one time he said and this has become a famous quote the political reality is that the jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here i've always argued against some of the dumb things they do because i don't think it's in the interest of is world and of quote here's chuck hagel during this confirmation hearing he noted that i. that i should have used another term and i'm sorry and i regret i mean do your use of intimidation. i should have used influence. i think would have been more appropriate i should not have said dumb or stupid. because i understand appreciate there are different views in these things it was like torture watching the hearing because it seemed as if the senators were not there to question chuck hagel but they were there to break him because they kept going back to his previous statements and pushing and pushing until he said what they wanted to hear and he

did it so whoever thought chuck hagel was going to offer a new outlook on u.s. foreign policy after this hearing would seriously doubt that. and of course are always interested in your view on the topic so we can and so if you have to r.t. dot com and vote in our online poll to let us know why you think hey girl's stance on iran has become more hawkish here what you will see these are the options we offer you so admitting a strike on iran is a viable option the first option is a genuine change of heart also is just a ploy to counter criticism of being anti israeli also he's his stance doesn't matter and as he wouldn't have influence on iran policy anyway all it proves his own claim that no one can stand up to the jewish lobby and let's now have a look how you have voted so far how the opinion is divided so far so almost a half of you believe and thing that hey girls given given in to lobby pressure

a third of you believe his opinion doesn't make any difference anyway just a little less say it's just a ploy to get the job and only a tiny minority of you things that he has generally changed his position so you go to the dot com to cast your vote if you still haven't and whatever prompters the change in her goals of rhetoric many experts believe even if he wants to change u.s. foreign policy he'll struggle to do so. when president obama was elected in two thousand and a we you know the same kind of hope to me as it was there with shutting down gitmo and ending these wars and fighting the right kind of wars but then we find out when you know after the deal is done after the elections are over the nomination process is over we continue with our war footing around the world no matter what the politicians come before those cameras and tell you what the key factors are that we need to take care of it be a social safety nets or the economy or or jobs being created in this country the united states will always have money for two things you can be rest assured bankers

and bullets we already see the headlines coming out of the mainstream media talking about the sequester and how this is going to get our military we will have nonstop propaganda being a bombarded on to the people that fear reducing the budget of the military so i'm absolutely confident that every secretary of defense will have a very very loose pocketbook to spend to keep spending us into oblivion this is the answer i had to get the sound the conflict in germany's as well as down south so no one will it says of child the place to hold the headline. also later this hour reports on the risks of genetically modified food but why its main produces might not have anything to war i bought all about that.

well. technology innovation and all the developments from around russia we've got the future covered. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. of. me is eat eat eat eat eat eat. eat eat eat.

wealthy british style. that's not on the telephone. market why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report on our. do we speak your language or not a day of. school music programs and documentaries and spanish more matters to you breaking news a little tonnage of angola's kidney's stories. for you to see

destroyed all teach spanish find out more visit. all tito it's calm. here the reindeer is everything for the herders. than anyone that suffers people do their best to help go. the distances or. when the roads are. predictable. will the remedy be a try. this is also a life or moscow welcome bought in germany washable is it turning the box on the

conflict charged with the number of attendees falling rapidly at the save the lack of action of the claims of child abuse is just one reason the small of the charge devolved an investigation into alleged sexual abuse cases committed by priests and you might find some of the details and things all of us reported to study. the abuse of trust the destruction of faith the theft of innocence or undone. in one nine hundred seventy nine when i was invited to his house he locked the doors and forced me to drink what i now know was alcohol. he asked me what i thought of his penis which was a wrecked then the priest made me perform oral sex on him. the catholic church in germany is facing a crisis attendances dropped significantly over the past few years according to the

central committee of german catholics one hundred eighty thousand parishioners stopped going to mass in twenty ten alone many citing church hierarchy unwillingness to do enough about claims of abuse like the ones made by wilfred the priest at the center of this particular scandal is now being moved to a different parish while this church where its alleged abuses took place remains closed to worshippers but just how difficult is it to bring a criminal prosecution in cases like this if those people go to court now it's very difficult to get to a sentence because the richness is sometimes died in between the memory has got lost and so those attempts to get to have a trial usually fail christian five for had been in charge of an extensive study into abuse in the german catholic church dating back as far as nineteen forty five

his research claims that the church destroyed files on priests involved in abuse up to ten years also that twelve hundred victims were paid hush money not to reveal what happened to them he was dismissed after a dispute with senior clergy a lot information would be made public the scandal that this research is no not going to be finished. is causing problems to them as well now they're losing members because of the new headlines of the last few weeks there are those within the church that recognise the importance of transparency if lapsed catholics not to be brought back into the flock. a woman. thing and when we do not make things clear there will always be an aftertaste that something is being covered up this will harm attempts to get people into church because it is a bad foundation for trust and all belief is based on trust. with my father jaime for wilfrid that trust has been lost he says he will never set foot in

a church again he's committed to getting compensation for himself and those others who claim they were abused by people who were supposed to be in a position of responsibility peter all over r.t. germany. and to some other international news and grieve this hour. has killed twenty people left more than one hundred injured at the mexico city headquarters of pemex the state owned oil company the figures have been confirmed on the company's twitter account some people reportedly remain trapped inside the building local media say a gas leak may have caused the blast in september an explosion at the company's natural gas facility in northern mexico left thirty people dead. politicians from across egypt's political spectrum have renounced widespread violence the scene of protests across the country very grim and came at a meeting attended by leaders of the muslim brotherhood as well as the heads of the liberal and secular opposition movements it was called as president morsi cut short

his trip to germany because of the ongoing of west at home with a hard securing any financial backing from. a standoff between police and a man holding a five year old child hostage in a bunker in rural alabama has ended his third day the boy was taken earlier this week when a gunman shot dead a school bus driver after he refused to let the youngster off the vehicle they suspected kidnapper is a retired at sixty five year old truck driver the boys apparently have harmed. the case prime minister is promising to stand by levy and improve its economy pledges of support come despite britain's own economy going through a tough time and david cameron has made a surprise visit to the north african country defying security warnings from his own foreign office is one of africa's leading all producers and critics say the u.k.'s interests in the country are all about

a blunt gold so claims my colleague about not say discussed with her is quite a from a conservative think tank the group. and for his visit there is is to show the support that britain and the u.k. government wants to give northern african countries that wish to tradition to democracy although not necessarily in military terms there are other ways we can give support libya algeria in that top five africa of oil producers together pumping out eighty five percent of the continent's black gold do you maintain that britain's interests in them has nothing to do with that i mean we are rich in this facing some economic tough times right now so are we moving back to north africa for that though certainly not british petroleum and other oil companies had interests in libya before. the colonel gadhafi but now that they own genes that hasn't changed is it easier for your government to go back and say well we've helped in the region changes so now we can come in and start talking about how we

can work together again. it's more difficult to do business in libya after the revolt but. i think the important point is that whilst tony blair felt that he could deal with colonel gadhafi david cameron didn't feel that the united kingdom could acceptably go on dealing with a sponsor of terrorism terrorism very ambiguous term these days isn't it some syrian rebels aren't terrorists yet the west backs they've cause where do we draw the line well al qaeda is clearly a terrorist organization that is and the rebels in the same way if i am or made those comments he was he was referring specifically to. or made those comments in light of what happened in algeria and and that makes the point very clearly that british lives were lost in algeria. so there's not only threats to lives abroad but there's also a threat to lives at home because where al-qaeda training centers have been subdued

in afghanistan they've now moved to northern africa. always there is more news for you online including on going on to. korea lead should leave the enthusing. get some of it too but you know i should say it's all me to prepare football so i had to alter dot com to see if the korean peninsula is on the brink of a military conflict. and also on the line the internet users of the way millions of devices are now in danger of being and these if pick for haiku is due to a software malfunction that's been known about for some time. x. rays have protesters outside a shareholder meeting at the headquarters of one of america's notorious genetically

modified food producers an old song to protest as demanded more transparency in the company's labeling research and business practices and made concerns over they saved g.m. crops but adam i didn't get our shareholder and monsanto believes as long that such companies financially support politicians and the risk could be brushed under the carpet. these chemicals may be what's causing higher rates of cancer in industrialized nations nations across the globe we have caused tumors in rats that were fed and long term food studies last year i was it will speak during the meeting and this meeting is closed to the public and we one of the things are asking for is in the future this speed live streamed people around the world care about what's going into the food they may not want to own monsanto stock i only bought stock so i could speak share or meet a company knows already about their genetically modified crops which many say food activists believe make us more rely on herbicides and chemicals that the company

also sells the companies give heed massive donations to politicians on an annual basis they are very active in the political system so by spending tens of millions of dollars even hundreds of millions of dollars on elections. it's not that politicians are not going to prioritize rejecting crops and after a show of break it's out special report all roads lead to the to stand.